Top ref backs bid for sports status (From Gazette & Herald)

Top ref backs bid for sports status

JEFF Winter, last season's FA Cup final referee, was today meeting young Ryedale sport stars to launch a North Yorkshire school's bid for specialist sports college status.

Richard Buck, the Great Britain under-20s 400m champion; Wendy Brown, who plays cricket for England; and Paul Humphreys, captain of the Yorkshire under-25s flat green bowling squad, met the top ref to mark the campaign for sporting excellence at Lady Lumley's School, in Pickering.

The school must raise £50,000 before it can make its application for sport college status, which it aims to do in October in time to gain the status by September next year.

If the bid is successful the school will get £100,000 to improve sports and ICT provision, £80,000 a year for the next four years to raise standards, and £40,000 a year for the next four years to work with local schools and the community to improve sporting opportunities.

"Lady Lumley's School is on the cusp of a significant rise in standards and specialist status is the spur the school requires to make the leap in improvement it is capable of making," said head teacher John Tomsett. "Sports college status will enable the school to concentrate on raising standards of teaching and learning, not just in sport, but across the school as a whole."

The specialist status would address the improvement needed in physical education continuity from Key Stage Two to Three that was highlighted in an OFSTED report.

It would also complement the school's designation as a hub school in the School Sports Co-ordinators' Programme from September next year and support plans to create an analysis classroom or laboratory at its new fitness suite, which was paid for by the New Opportunities Fund.

"We know that to achieve a high level in the sporting arena requires determination, a commitment to hard work and to working collaboratively in a team, the ability to set challenging personal targets and to review your own performance in order to improve, an unshakable self-belief . . . and the motivational skills generated from participating in a competitive activity," said Mr Tomsett.

The first fund-raising event will be bag packing at the town's Safeway supermarket on June 26.

Malton School achieved its goal to gain specialist status in science in February, while Ryedale School, Nawton, near Helmsley, has submitted a bid for special status in performing arts.

Updated: 09:57 Tuesday, June 15, 2004